


Falling

by Avia_Isadora



Series: Elleth Lavellan [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Getting Together, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21734164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avia_Isadora/pseuds/Avia_Isadora
Summary: Blackwall certainly appreciates flirting with Elleth Lavellan, but he's a man with a past who is hardly in a position to start a relationship.  How long will his honorable resolve last?
Relationships: Blackwall/Female Inquisitor, Blackwall/Lavellan
Series: Elleth Lavellan [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566448
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Falling

She’s a handsome woman, the Inquisitor. Not a bit younger than he is, and Blackwall is no spring chicken, but when she goes straight up a slope a mountain goat would think twice about, you’ve got to admire her form. Certainly you’ve got to admire it from beneath, which is where he usually is, struggling up the rocks in half-plate while she leaps nimbly up in elvhen leathers that fit like a second skin. She’s doing it on purpose, he thinks, when for the twentieth time that day he’s looking at her buttocks ascending ahead of him. If she wasn’t the Inquisitor, he’d say something that would make Cassandra blush and Dorian turn the tables. So he doesn’t say a word about it, just admires her posterior silently. At the top of the cliff she turns and gives him a little smirk which makes it perfectly clear that yes, she was doing it on purpose. He can appreciate the view even if anything else would be inappropriate.

Which is more or less what he says when she boldly asks if he’d like to share her tent in camp that night. He answers almost reflexively: the difference in our stations is too great, he could not hope to aspire, the honor of such a liaison must escape him, the lady is too far above him, et cetera, et cetera. 

Elleth looks at him like he’s grown a second head. It occurs to him that an elf of her age with a fine collection of lockpicks and a deadly accurate hand with a bow probably doesn’t get the great lady treatment too often. After all, she’s only been Inquisitor for a week, and before that Herald or prisoner for three months more. 

“Suit yourself,” she says, and shares with Cassandra. 

He tosses and turns in the tent with Dorian, who sleeps the blissful sleep of the just. Or at least the sleep of a man who is entirely oblivious to the charms of My Lady Inquisitor.

It’s warmed up and stopped snowing by the time they’re back in Skyhold from the Hinterlands. It does occur to him that she’s likely to be making the rounds of the fortress and checking on all the repairs and renovations in progress. And he genuinely has work to do. It’s just that he times it when he sees her come out of Cullen’s office and start down the stairs on her way to the lower courtyard to begin chopping wood. And it’s just because it’s a warmish day that he does it shirtless. 

He absolutely doesn’t notice her until she addresses him. 

“My,” Elleth says. “That’s some wood that needs chopping.”

“It needs chopping so I’m chopping it.” He swings the hatchet around one handed, and with a flip of the wrist buries it neatly in the next log. He might be smiling when he looks at her. He might be doing that thing with an eyebrow that women like.

There’s that smirk again, like the cat that caught the canary. “That’s some very fine wood you have there,” she says. “I’d love to see it more closely.”

He nearly chokes. My lady Inquisitor has a dirty mouth on her. “I’m afraid you’ve seen all there is to see,” Blackwall says.

“And why’s that?’

Oh she’s nothing if not direct, is my lady Inquisitor. “I’m in no position to do aught else,” he says. 

“Because you’re a Warden?”

He shouldn’t have flirted. Not when he’s got to turn it down. Though it’s tempting. He looks down at the hatchet. “I’m in no position to make promises to anyone.”

“Who’s asking for a promise?” She gives him that wicked glance again, turning away to head for the kitchen stairs, then looking over her shoulder. “I was looking for someone who knew what to do with wood.” His jaw is probably hanging open as she ascends the stairs, a nice view of her backside as a parting shot.

Third time is the charm. It’s pouring rain on a late winter night, and he’s gone in the kitchen late for a bit of whatever was left from dinner in the hall. The last person he expects to see is the Inquisitor, in her ubiquitous blue dress uniform, eating bread and new cheese and thin onion soup by the fire. Onions are about all they have left. She looks up when she sees him, and her smile is warm. “Looking for some soup?”

“Could be.” He gets a bowl and sits down opposite her at the trestle table. 

“I’m not going to grab your privates if you sit next to me,” she says. Elleth lifts her chin. “If you want me to leave it be, I will. But I thought you had some ideas too.”

He looks up over the soup. Her eyes are like a summer sky, the kind that crackles with heat lightning, and she serves pride less than honesty. “I’ve had ideas,” Blackwall says. “Maker, I dare any man to spend much time with you and not have ideas!”

“Many men have managed not to,” she says. “But you seemed interested.”

“I am.” Honesty deserves honesty, and he’d not hurt her pride for the world. No, he’d not hurt her for the world. “But….”

She spreads cheese on a piece of bread, conversationally. “Are you married? Is there a Mistress Blackwall and six little ones?”

He chokes on the soup. She does that to him a lot. “No! Do you think I’d carry on if there were? Never been married, no little ones.”

“Some men carry on. Some wives don’t mind.” She takes a bite of the bread. “Never been any good at fidelity myself.”

“Nor I,” he says, and that’s honest. “I make no promises I don’t intend to keep.”

She takes another neat bite. “I expect you’ve broken some hearts in your day.”

“I have.” His voice is even. 

Elleth meets his eyes. “So have I. I’ve broken some things I regret breaking. But there it is. There’s a time you’ve got to run.”

“And if men break themselves on you, it’s their own fault.” Like being a rock in a river, he thinks. You could dash yourself to pieces on her, but it’s your own fault if you thought you could tame the river.

There’s something oddly vulnerable in those eyes. She doesn’t belong in this place, no more than he does. Being my lady Inquisitor is a heavy weight for any to bear. It would be heavy on a young noble warrior who was human to boot, or a pious chaste Chantry sister who was certain of Andraste’s grace. She’s neither. There are none of her kin here. There is no one she’s known more than a few months, and everyone needs something from her. They need her to be someone. They need her to be holy and righteous and wise, or else their mother or their vengeance. It makes him angry. Can’t they leave her be a little? Can’t they let her be Elleth? He’d ask her what she wanted for breakfast at least. 

All this goes through his mind in a moment, the heartbeats it takes to look at someone over some bread and cheese. “There are some risks worth taking,” Blackwall says. “And it so happens I might be a gambling man.”

There’s that smile again, and seeing her smile is like the sun coming out after rain. “And what are you betting?”

“That I’ll have you screaming like a cat within the hour.” She does like a direct proposition.

Her smile widens. “I’m betting it’s you who’ll be screaming.”

“Define screaming.” Oh this is doing it for him, words like foreplay, a good filthy passage of arms.

“Bellowing. Shouting.” She licks her bottom lip. “Begging.”

“I’m not sure you can get me straight to begging.” Although she might. “Might need to work on that.”

“I might.” Her pulse is jumping in her throat just above the tight line of her collar. 

He knows better than to suggest she beg. That’s the kind of thing that isn’t funny to an elvhen woman.

And the cook walks in. “My Lady Inquisitor!”

“Just grabbing a little late supper,” Elleth says. “The War Council ran late and I….”

“I would have been happy to bring you and the Warden anything you liked!” the cook says. He looks mortally offended. “I can make you a nice omelet. I’ve got cheese and scallions and a bit of bacon. Or there’s ham in the larder. If I’d known you’d be late, I could….”

“It’s quite all right,” Elleth says quickly. She looks at him, just a passing glance. “The Warden and I are entirely satisfied.”

“I think there’s a cold pie,” the cook continues. “And some of those Ferelden blood sausages.”

“Really, we’re fine.” 

“My Lady Inquisitor, I can’t have you in the kitchen!” The cook sounds distraught. “What will people think? Ambassador Montilyet would think I’ve no business running a kitchen in a great house!”

“I promise not to tell her,” Elleth says. “I appreciate the soup and bread. Really.”

“I can make you a nice egg on toast.”

“The Warden and I were just leaving,” Elleth says. She stands up, grabbing the rest of the bread and cheese. “Truly. Everything was wonderful and I won’t tell Josephine I was here.”

The cook is still expostulating as they beat a hasty retreat through the kitchen door.

Unfortunately, it’s still pouring rain.

“Shit,” Elleth says, sheltering the bread against her chest as the water sheets down on them.

“I have this very nice barn just here,” Blackwall says. “Dash for it?”

They do, but they (and the bread) are soaked by the time they’ve pelted across the none-too-clean puddles of the stable yard. He swings the barn door shut behind them. It’s warmer inside, and at least it’s dry.

“I’ve a lantern in the loft,” he says, and leads her up. 

It’s not much of a room, he’s got to admit. There’s the hayloft door, currently with an old horse blanket hung over it like a window curtain. He’s got his bits and bobs around, a lantern hanging from the roof beam, a pile of straw arranged like a deep cradle with a couple of blankets in the bottom. He’s slept worse, on campaign and elsewhere. He expects she has too. 

Blackwall fishes out the top blanket. The line is so obvious it hurts. “I expect you’ll want to get out of those wet clothes.”

She laughs. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then maybe you should get out of those wet clothes too. I’ll help you with your coat.” She puts her hands on his chest.

“I appreciate the assistance, my lady,” he replies gravely, and stands perfectly still while she unfastens his coat. 

“Take it off,” she says. “And your shirt too.”

This is doing it for him all right. “Like being in charge?” He had a suspicion. And it’s safer than to assume the opposite. He’s got eight inches and nearly a hundred pounds on her. At close quarters he could break her arm or her neck before she could so much as cry out, as any woman who plays dangerously knows. She’s no innocent, and he’s no perfect gentle knight.

“You know I do,” she says a little breathlessly. “So shut your mouth and take it off.”

He feels that all the way down to his privates and can’t help but grin. “If I shut my mouth it’s not much use to you.”

At that she laughs, delight in the game. She spreads her hands on his bare chest, the one with the mark curving up to his shoulder, and he very deliberately puts his at the small of her back and pulls her in for a kiss. There’s a use for mouths beyond talking.

In the end they both win the bet. She did indeed scream when she came while she rode him, one hand on his hip for balance and the other just where she needed it, lips distended around that hard little nub and her filled with him. And he did indeed bellow when she raked his shoulders with her nails as he struggled for the end, needing just a little more.

And then they’re laughing in the nest of blankets and straw, his breeches down around his hips and her shirt with its long tails her only garment, face to face and side by side. Blackwall does up his breeches and pulls one of the blankets up over them both. She closes her eyes, her face against his shoulder. It’s warm and quiet in the barn except for the sound of their breathing and the pounding of the rain on the roof.

“Still raining,” she whispers.

“Stay until it stops then,” he says. It’s the drowsy after, the sudden drop after the height. They’re neither one as young as they used to be.

She might say something that means assent, or she might already be asleep. It doesn’t matter which. Blackwall closes his arms around her. It’s messy and imperfect and amazing, and there’s no reason to move ever again.

It’s pretty much the same hours later when he wakes with a full and aching bladder. She’s sound asleep on his shoulder, her lips parted, the lines of her face relaxed in sleep. He wonders how long he can just lie like this before he has to move. Not long enough. He goes down and visits the bucket. It’s still short of dawn and the rain is a drizzle now.

When he comes back up she’s stirred, propped up on one elbow in her half-open shirt, the blanket over her. “Just visiting the necessary,” he says, and lies back down beside her on his back.

After a moment she settles on his shoulder like a cat seeking the most comfortable lap. “Well, that was fun.”

“It was indeed.” It’s an understatement, but he thinks she thinks so too. There’s one bit of honesty he can give her. “It’s been a while.”

“For me too.” She traces the red marks on his opposite shoulder. “Oh dear. I think I marked you.”

“No one will see,” he says.

“They will if you chop more wood shirtless.” She smiles against him. 

“I only did that for you.”

“I know.” She looks up at him, uncertainty in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I don’t mind that kind of hurt.” Truth to tell, he needed it to get there, at the last. She knew it, and she knew how to send him over the edge, just like he urged her to touch herself while she rode him. Everybody has their twists.

“Well.” She caresses the scratches. “If you like it.”

“I won’t chop wood shirtless for a bit,” he says. He knows what the dignity of the Inquisitor requires. There can be no dirty jokes about her in taverns, no prurient speculation. It’s hard enough for her to wield authority as it is. She doesn’t need any more jokes about elvhen whores than already come to mind. “I will dress with perfect propriety, My Lady Inquisitor.” Blackwall catches her hand and lifts it to his lips, courtly and reverent.

“You….” Elleth stops. Maybe she doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. You understand? You know? You want me to succeed?

“I respect you. And I’d like to think you respect me.”

“Oh.” She’s not used to that. She’s used to scrambling for every crumb of regard. Well, she has his. She has from the first day. She’s the Inquisitor, and it’s not because she makes a pretty figurehead. Kingdoms are going to tremble before her. He can see that already. If they lose, Thedas will go down in flames. If they win, she’ll need a map and ink to rearrange the world. She may not know that yet, but he feels it in his bones. “Of course I respect you,” she says.

He blinks. “Because I’m a Warden?”

Elleth seems to consider this carefully. “No,” she says slowly. “Not mostly. I haven’t really known a Warden before. But I like the way you pitch in with everything, like training the recruits. And that you do what needs to be done, but kindly and with restraint. You feel the weight of it. You know how important this is, and that it’s important to each and every person we touch. They’re all real to you.”

Blackwall bows his head. It’s hard to talk for a minute.

Her hand caresses his shoulder again, turns his face to hers. “Kiss me again.”

Sweet, warm, tender, deep – there are not enough words for this overwhelming tenderness. He’s dreamed this. Or he dreams it now. Or he wanted it once and long ago, a lady to fall into like this, bawdy wench and liegelady at once. 

Maker, he thinks, I’m done for now.


End file.
